python string comparison oddity

[Lie]

On Jun 19, 2:26 am, Faheem Mitha <fah... at email.unc.edu> wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I was wondering if anyone can explain this. My understanding is that 'is'
> checks if the object is the same. However, in that case, why this
> inconsistency for short strings? I would expect a 'False' for all three
> comparisons. This is reproducible across two different machines, so it is
> not just a local quirk. I'm running Debian etch with Python 2.4.4 (the
> default).
>                                                             Thanks, Faheem.
>
> In [1]: a = '--'
>
> In [2]: a is '--'
> Out[2]: False
>
> In [4]: a = '-'
>
> In [5]: a is '-'
> Out[5]: True
>
> In [6]: a = 'foo'
>
> In [7]: a is 'foo'
> Out[7]: True

Yes, this happens because of small objects caching. When small
integers or short strings are created, there are possibility that they
might refer to the same objects behind-the-scene. Don't rely on this
behavior.